As people often do at the start of a new year, I was recently considering our journey at the Old Vicarage and how we have challenged ourselves to keep evolving and offereing even better experiences for our guests.
The following are some of my highlights (NB Plans for 2025 to come in the next blog!)
2017 - 17th March saw our first guest Mrs Smith arriving for a weekend stay. A few months later we added what has since become one of our most popular features, our hot tub!
2018 - We had a slight setback where a burst pipe means that we had to close for 3 months and completely replace the brand new kitchen we had installed a year before. All covered by insurance but a painful experience. On the positive side, we added a beautiful wooden sauna that doesnt just warm you up but I think aesthetically looks stunning under the old oak tree - what do you think? To keep the kids happy we added a large climbing frame. Far grander than the old metal one we had in place 40 years ago!
2019 - Following on the theme from the climbing frame, we realised that a large percentage of our guests were families with kids so we added some more entertainment - a full size table tennis table and table football
2020 - The year of COVID. Everything a bit on hold but we did make the most of the facilities as both my family and my brother’s family spent the majority of 2020 living here. One of the things we did was to plant a load of trees in the field as part of our plan to create a more bio-diverse environment
2021 - A bit of a post COVID holding pattern but one thing we did do which may not sound exciting was to properly insulate the area between the stairs and the cellar. Now, our stairs is a thing of beauty but we used to get serious drafts coming through. It was amazing what difference this made.
2022 - Following on the exciting theme of drafts, we took the decision this year to replace the open fire in the lounge with a log burner. This was slightly painful as the open fire brought back many happy memories of sitting down with our parents toasting bread and watching something like rugby special on tele but the reality was that it didnt add much warmth when being used, when not being used, all the heat would go up the chimney and it was also a slight concern from a H&S perspective. Again, the difference it made to the room was amazing - much warmer, even without the fire being on and now much more children friendly.
2023 - So, a bit of an option for the future here but we have a large outbuilding that needed some TLC so we tidied up the roof, redid the floor and put in a new stairs. Not sure what we are going to use it for but if you have any bright ideas, please shout!
2024 - Our parents had put in 2 ensuites when they did B&B back in the 80s/90s and, if we’re honest, they were a bit small and the showers weren’t great but they were good enough but last year we decided we needed to upgrade them so we expanded both of them to make them more appropriate for today’s needs and also add new rain showers. Having tested them both out, I am definitely glad that we made the change - a much better showering experience!
